Review: Ghosts

I love to read romances, rom coms, historical fiction, and the odd mystery. But sometimes, I want a real just... life kind of novel. Ghosts delivered. Dolly Alderton's debut novel has a healthy dose of relationships but that's not all it was and the Happily Ever After we get isn't typical but it was so real and refreshing. All those elements made for a really good read.

Here's the book's description:

Nina Dean is not especially bothered that she's single. She owns her own apartment, she's about to publish her second book, she has a great relationship with her ex-boyfriend and enough friends to keep her social calendar full and her hangovers plentiful. And when she downloads a dating app, she does the seemingly impossible: she meets a great guy on her first date. Max is handsome and built like a lumberjack, he has floppy blond hair and is a financially successful accountant. But more surprising than anything else, Nina and Max have chemistry. Their conversations are witty and ironic, they both hate sports, they dance together like fools, they happily dig deep into the nuances of crappy music, and they create an entire universe of private jokes and chemical bliss.
But when Max ghosts her, Nina is forced to deal with everything she's been trying so hard to ignore: her father's Alzheimer's is getting worse, and so is her mother's denial of it; her editor hates her new book idea; and her best friend from childhood is icing her out. Funny, tender and eminently, movingly relatable, Ghosts is a whip-smart tale of relationships and modern life.

I have to admit that I think I read this book at the wrong time. I wanted to love it but I couldn't quite get there and I think that's all on me. So if you think this review is a little, meh, but you're still intrigued? Read the book. Then come back and tell me what my recent crummy mood made me miss! 

As I said at the top, I love rom coms. I've heard Ghosts described as such (even the back cover copy calls it one). Uh. It's not. I allow rom coms to have a lot of leeway and don't mind in the least that some of the recent offerings in the genre are a bit heavier than people expect. However. I require my rom com to have romance, comedy/cleverness, and a romantic Happily Ever After. There are relationships in this book, as much as you would expect in the life of a 32 year old female. Nina wants to date, like most of your friends would, and therefore she does. But, my friends, (and this is a slight spoiler, I guess), she doesn't end up in a relationship at the end of this novel. And that means, to me, that this is not a rom com. This is simply a funny and clever contemporary fiction novel that speaks about the modern world of a thirtysomething woman. If this was a man and written by a man, we would not be having this discussion. It would be fiction, end of story. (Why, yes, you have found a soapbox I love to get on - how could you tell?) I mention all of this because it (rom com just because it's by a woman, etc.) frustrates me and I know it frustrates others when they go into a book expecting one kind of story and they get something else. I don't want you to be disappointed in this novel because it is really good!

I was literally laughing out loud at so many parts in this novel. It was fucking funny. Part of my enjoyment came from the fact that it's British humour, which I absolutely adore. It's not for everyone but it's part of what drew me to the novel to begin with. There were a couple of pages I had to snap pictures of because I was so amused. One being when Nina says that all tall people (including her best friend Katherine) are smug about their height. I don't know if that's true of all tall people but I know that I, at 6' tall, definitely have moments when I am quite proud to be a giantess. 

Nina is a year older than I am but the book was set in the Before Times (August 3, 2018-August 3, 2019) so she's 32 through the course of the novel, which is younger than I am right now. (Got all that?) My point: I was thrilled that she was my age as I totally related to so much of what she was going through. I have friends who have kids of all ages and, yeah, that changes things. I completely identified with how she was feeling with Katherine - that just because Nina didn't have kids didn't make her life any less difficult (to my close friends with kiddos reading this: you don't do this. It's acquaintances or strangers who do this). No, Nina doesn't have a toddler to raise while being pregnant with another kid. But she does have a father with Alzheimer's and that is difficult too and I wanted her friends to realize that. I also laughed when she talked about how much she had learned about pregnancy, birth, and babies just from being friends with women who have had kids. So much truth.

Ghosts is about so much more than being ghosted in a relationship (though that does happen). It's about facing the ghosts of who you were, who your friends were, who your parents were, and how you've all changed - whether you want to or not. Dolly Alderton's novel is clever, observant, and funny with maybe a touch of...melancholy? It has a little bit of everything and I can't wait to read what she writes next.

*A copy of this novel was provided by the publisher, Doubleday Canada (Penguin Random House Canada), in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*